Well, It Can't Get Much Worse
by NarutoKyuu
Summary: Arthur Pendragon came to live by the strict expectation that he was doomed to be nothing more than a loser and an object of ridicule at Worcestershire Academy. And Lancelot suddenly being nice to him was certainly NOT part of that expectation. LancexArtie


_A/N: I return with more, suddenly craved fanfiction! Well, okay, so…I think it was last year or so, I figured, 'Hey! This pairing would be awfully cute!' but I never really explored it. Then this year I realized that it's (understandably) severely lacking fanfiction. Hahaha. So I set out to try to make this (notably) impossible pairing seem even remotely plausible. I don't know if I succeeded or not. (I find the amount of detail that went into Worcestershire Academy cute and funny – in reference to Artie's yearbook on the DVD. I was going to try to incorporate some of them, but…well, maybe that's for a later day. Way too many characters to get to know, so I stuck mainly to Artie. (And the fact that one of the Three Little Pigs said that Artie was "a strange little girl." Pffft.) I'm sleepy now. I feel all detached. Well. Enjoy. Or throw bricks at my head for this. I'll accept either reaction.  
-NarutoKyuu  
(P.S. Best Days by Matt White is one of the cutest songs I've heard.)_

_(__**Warnings~**__ Slash (boyxboy), I suppose there might be OOCness…I'm not exactly sure…__**  
Notes~**__ As close to the canon universe as possible (however possible that is)  
__**Pairings~**_ _LancelotxArthur)  
((Are disclaimers really necessary on a site like this?))_

* * *

_A Background of Knowledge Relevant to the Rest of the Story:_

To say that Arthur Pendragon hated his life would have been the understatement of the century. He _loathed_ it. _Despised_ it even. Why? Because some cruel, higher force of life deemed him to forever be a loser and a failure.

His mother was gone; his father didn't want anything to do with him; and, the moment his behind landed onto the precisely cobbled ground of Worcestershire Academy, he was shunned by the entire student body and staff. No one wanted anything to do with the small, scrawny, new kid with too much awkward and not enough suave. He quickly became an outcast to the _outcasts_. Even the teachers tended to pick on him or stood by to watch his misery. (Well, with the exception of Mister Merlin, but he retired halfway through Arthur's sophomore year, so he doesn't really count.)

Sure, Arthur managed to become what could be called close acquaintances with some of the other losers, but the fact remained that he would always be alone at the deep, dark, cold bottom of the high school food chain. Should the jocks from the jousting team come around, it was every man for himself and Arthur was usually the one left behind to have his head dunked down a chamber pot or to have his body jammed into someone's locker, left to stand there for an undetermined amount of time until said someone came to retrieve his or her books. Or both.

Was it so bad then that in sophomore year, after Mister Merlin had had his mental breakdown, when jousting season came around, Arthur had jumped at the chance to join the team when they had asked? Okay, so he was filling in for a target practice dummy that had been broken earlier in the year, and wasn't _actually_ on the team or anything, and they _still_ picked on him and shoved his head down chamber pots _and_ trapped him in some poor soul's locker, but he was recognized as actually being _needed_ somewhere, and that had to be a plus, right?

After the bruises and sprained joints and broken limbs and pain, well, by the end of the year Arthur figured that the new practice dummy would be coming in soon and so he could just quit the team and go back to being a complete nobody. He wouldn't be needed anymore, but he valued his physical wellbeing just a _little_ more than actually being somebody of use. However, it _seemed_ that the team had become enamored with knocking him off of the cheap, wooden horse with his target-painted padding and silly-looking mockery of a helmet and it _seemed_ that the coach was convinced that it was Arthur being target practice that brought the team to championships, and so, lo and behold, Arthur had gained a permanent spot on the jousting team for the remainder of his high school career. As a target practice dummy.

Oh no wait, it gets better. Not only was he the point of ridicule of even the D&D geeks of the social pyramid, left to chance by his almost-close-friends, and the living, breathing, practice dummy of the jousting team, he was _completely_ infatuated with the top-of-the-pyramid beauty, Guinevere.

So, no, come Arthur's senior year at Worcestershire Academy, he was most certainly not in love with his life. And, well, this is where Arthur's life took a turn for the better – or, perhaps, the worse.

**Well, It Can't Get Much Worse:.**

Arthur couldn't help but note that the sky was a pretty shade of blue that day, as he lay on the grass of the practice field. Oh sure, his back ached, his head hurt, and his chest would probably have a sizable bruise of a pleasant shade of purple the next day, but the pretty, blue sky made all that move to the backburner for a short while.

"Hey, Artie, get back up, would you? Practice hasn't ended yet!"

He sighed and closed his eyes, turning the world from blue to black. Maybe if he laid still enough and didn't move for a while, they would think he had died or something and leave him be. Or maybe they would trample his dead body with a horse or two before getting someone to check on him. With that in mind, he made a show of loudly groaning in pain, knowing that it would only cause them to roll their eyes at the most and took his sweet time climbing back onto the sad imitation of a horse.

Thankfully, since the jousting season hadn't officially started yet, most of the team members had been fooling around that day and weren't really trying to hit him, and so the injuries he sustained were minimal. The only one who seemed serious about knocking him down as accurately, swiftly, and painfully as possible was the Lord of the Jerks himself Lancelot, but Arthur expected that, so he had mentally prepped himself for the beating and didn't notice it much.

It was a wonderful end to the first week of his final year at Worcestershire Academy, if he could say so himself.

When practice ended, he was loaded with clean-up duty, as usual, but he didn't mind, as usual. The time he took to tidy up the mess left behind was probably one of the only times on the school's grounds that he didn't have to remain constantly alert in fear of receiving a hit-and-run wedgy as well as constantly block out the teasing and jibes and taunts he was subjected to at any other given time during the day. It was one of the only times he had any real peace, and he tried to extend that as much as possible by making sure everything was _perfectly_ cleaned and in place for the next practice – not that anyone really took the time to notice this. It was a little sad, but he tried not to think about it too much.

After making sure for the fifth time that each lance was exactly parallel with the other, leaning against the wall at just the right angle and carefully arranging each uniform and set of armor at their respective places (even his own dinky mockery of the gleaming, metal suits and helmets had its own, questionably proud place in a forgotten corner of the locker room), he made his way to the stable.

The horses were probably the only thing the team slightly took care of, and so Arthur wouldn't usually have to do much at the stable and tack shed, but he enjoyed the company of the horses when they weren't charging at him with the intent to brutally injure and/or maim him.

One in particular was his favorite. It was a chocolate brown stallion with a flowing black mane that went by the name of Excalibur. (It also happened to be the exact same horse that the Lord of the Jerks favored himself, but Arthur liked to not think about that too much either.)

Arthur quietly walked through the warm stable, stopping to pet a horse here and there, before stopping at Excalibur's stall. He let himself in, silently undoing the latch and opening the door before just as silently closing it behind him.

"Hey there, buddy," he said softly as he stroked the horse's muzzle, "I've got something for you." He brought out a small sugar cube and waved it in front of the stallion's nose. When he quietly neighed and tried to lick it up, Arthur moved it out of the horse's reach again. "Ah, but you have to promise not to trample me, even if Lance tries to make you."

Excalibur whinnied a bit more loudly before snorting and tilting his head in such a way that it looked like he was rolling his eyes.

Arthur laughed, patted the stallion's neck, and handed the cube over. "Okay, okay. So you would never run me over, but I had to make sure."

The horse seemed to roll his eyes again before softly butting Arthur in the chest in a manner that made Arthur wholeheartedly believe that Excalibur was asking about his day.

Arthur leaned against a wall of the stall and shrugged. "It was pretty good, as far as my days go, I think. I didn't get as damaged as I usually do, and I have an entire weekend to heal, so that's good. Gwen still pretends to not know me, and I think she and Lance have something going on, but it's only a matter of time, you know?" Call him crazy for confiding in a horse, but if he confided in any human being it would surely be known by the whole school within the following twenty-four hours, and that just wasn't cool since he was taunted enough as it was, even without his deepest feelings being out in the world for all to see. He sighed, before earnestly looking at Excalibur. "I just don't know what to do. Whenever I'm around her I can never think properly enough to form a coherent sentence, forget telling her how I feel. I don't even know why I'm telling you this, it's not like _you_ can help me."

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Worm. And to think I thought that you couldn't possibly get any weirder."

Arthur was startled from his petting of Excalibur by the opening of the stall door and the loud, haughty voice of none other than the Lord of the Jerks. He quickly regained his composure and rolled his eyes. "Well forgive me for ruining your view of me, _my liege_. What do you want?"

"I always knew you were doing weird things in here, I just didn't know what. I was curious." Lancelot stated arrogantly. "And in reference to your earlier _conversation_, I don't think all the advice in the world could help _you_ get a girl, Worm."

Arthur scoffed. "What could _you_ possibly know that I couldn't fully compensate for?"

Lancelot merely raised an eyebrow in question. "Well, I do know that girls usually _don't_ go for guys with a girly figure. I'm pretty sure you can't compensate for that."

Arthur was at a complete loss for words. Usually he could combat Lancelot's dry comments with a few sharp comebacks of his own, but there was an appraising, almost appreciating, gleam in the taller boy's dark eyes that threw Arthur completely off balance. Had his mind been functioning he would have responded with something along the lines of a very sarcastic, "How wonderful of you to notice! I try my hardest to maintain this figure, you know," but since his mind wasn't exactly up to par, all he could do was stupidly ask, "Y-you think I look like a girl?" It didn't help that the only expression he could form was a dumbstruck, wide-eyed, and generally idiotic one either.

"Have you finally lost your brains on the field or something? I don't know what _you_ think I said, but _I'm_ pretty sure that I said that this," Lancelot pointed to the general shape of the Arthur's face, "this," the brunet's hands gestured to the blond's torso and hips, "and especially _this_," how Lancelot managed to maneuver his hand around to lightly smack him on the bottom without him noticing, Arthur would never know, "look rather girly."

And it was after that meeting in the stable that day that Arthur's life managed to get even _worse_, to his surprise. Now, not only was he running from the D&D geeks, constantly abandoned by his almost-close-friends, a target practice dummy for the jousting team, and undeniably enraptured by Guinevere, he also had to deal with his overly observant mind driving him crazy and what might or might not be Lancelot, dare he even think it, actually, genuinely _flirting_ with him.

He wouldn't have believed it possible before those following months, but he managed to loathe his life even _more_, because this maybe-maybe-not flirting from Lancelot only caused him to become more confused than ever before, which caused him to be less aware of his surroundings, which made him more susceptible to pranks and injuries, which made him more of a loser in Guinevere's eyes. It was a long chain effect that led to the absolute worst months of Arthur's high school career. The worst part of it was that no one else seemed to notice anything different, because to the rest of the world, Lancelot was merely doing what he always did – insulting Arthur and generally making his life miserable. All poor Arthur could do was suck it up and hope it would blow over and seamlessly integrate itself into his already miserable existence.

* * *

Arthur couldn't help but note that the sky was a pretty blend of yellows, oranges, and pinks that reminded him of a tropical sherbet that day, as he lay on the grass of the practice field. Oh sure, his back ached, his head hurt, his chest would probably have a sizable bruise of a pleasant shade of purple the next day, and his wrist hurt from earlier when he had foolishly tried to cushion his fall, but the pretty, tropical sherbet sky made all that move to the backburner for a short while.

"Hey, Artie, you've gotta clean up."

He sighed and he closed his eyes, turning the world from tropical sherbet to black. He could hear the footsteps of an approaching person after a few seconds and when the person stopped, Arthur genuinely feared, for a moment, that that person would step on him in order to check if he was alive or not. He didn't have any time to react to this fear as a boot, instead of stomping down on his stomach or chest, almost gently nudged him in the side.

"Hey, Worm, you didn't die, did you?"

Okay, so he could've replied, but Arthur was feeling daring that day and wanted to see how far he could push his luck, and so remained silent.

A shadow blocked the light that made it through his eyelids and Arthur struggled to keep his breathing even and to a minimum as his mind told him to run away in self-preservation. A warm hand softly smacked him in the face a couple of times.

"Hey, come on. Get up."

Arthur remained silent as he wondered who could possibly be checking if he was still alive (it could only be a member of the jousting team, since it was the beginning of the season and practices ran late into the day, when the rest of the school population would be long gone) and why in the world he was being so gentle. The warm hands found their way to his shoulders and they shook him, still being surprisingly gentle.

"Hey, this isn't funny anymore, Arthur. Get up."

Worry? Someone was actually _worried_ about him? His curiosity won out and Arthur slowly opened his ocean blue eyes to see dark brown, almost black, eyes staring back. He blinked as he tried to gain bearing of his surroundings and suddenly realized just who he was staring at and responded accordingly.

"_Lance?_"

Arthur reflexively tried to scoot away as quickly as possible, only to wince at the pain this caused in various parts of his body and realize that Lancelot had him pretty firmly pinned to the ground.

Lancelot, as if only just realizing what he had been doing, quickly stood, crossed his arms, and rolled his eyes. "It's so great of you to rejoin the land of the living. Get to work cleaning up, yeah?" He kicked Arthur in the side for a good measure before walking away.

Arthur, who had leaned up to look at what Lancelot was doing, groaned in pain before falling back to grass, causing the pain in the back of his head to make itself known. He laid there for a few moments longer, wondering what had just happened, before slowly standing up to tidy up the mess regularly left behind by the team. Only to realize that there was significantly less mess than there usually was. Things were even set up to the exact precision that Arthur methodically set them up to for each and every practice, which piqued his curiosity even more.

After putting to right what little mess there was left, Arthur couldn't help but peek into the stable for what he told himself was a quick visit to see Excalibur. What he was really hoping to do was find Lancelot and finally confront him. Things were getting a little too weird for his taste and he wanted to put a stop to it – or at least find a reason to it.

Thanks to some sort of luck or fate, the exact moment Arthur entered the stable, Lancelot had been making his way to leave, and since there was only one entrance and exit to the stable, this caused them to come face to face with one another.

"Hey, Worm. What're you doing here?"

"What are you playing at?" Arthur responded, wasting no time in his quest.

His reward was a look of confusion. Even when confused Lancelot managed to look condescending, however that was possible. "What are you talking about? I think you took too many falls today."

"Don't act like you don't know anything. You've been doing some sort of twisted flirting with me for the past several months. You've been watching me when you don't think anyone's looking. You've been cleaning up more and more after the team before I get to it, and with the exact same meticulousness that I use. You've been _nice_ to me. You haven't been hitting me as hard during practice. You were _worried_ that I had actually _died_," Arthur accused rapidly. He jabbed a finger into the taller boy's chest. "Who are you and what have you done with Lance?"

In a rare moment, Lancelot had found it in himself to have the grace to actually look embarrassed. "I'm still me," he dumbly responded after a moment.

Arthur crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "That still doesn't answer my question. What are you up to? Is this some new, grand scheme to make me seem like an even bigger loser? 'Cause I don't think that's really possible at this point."

There was a pause before Lancelot, the Lord of the Jerks, replied, "No, it's not."

"Then what is it, huh? Because, quite honestly, I have no idea what it could be. Do you just get your kicks from taking my life to brand new levels of misery?"

There was yet another silence before Lancelot invaded Arthur's personal space and brushed the backs of his fingers against the soft skin of Arthur's cheek. "I think you would make a pretty girl."

And instead of being confused (his mind had vaguely connected this to the conversation that had taken place months ago) or angry or indignant (because really, those were the regular responses he had to most anything that the Lord of the Jerks said), before Arthur even knew what he was doing or saying, he leaned in and asked one of the most embarrassing questions he had ever asked, "Prettier than Gwen?"

With an equal amount of shamelessness, Lancelot replied, "Yeah, much prettier than Gwen," before closing the distance and firmly kissing Arthur on the lips.

It was only when Arthur realized that he had closed his eyes and that his hands had found their way into Lancelot's hair and that he was actually responding that he fully realized what had just occurred and the implications of his actions. Upon this realization, Arthur roughly pulled away and stared at Lancelot in shock. That wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Arthur had sought out Lancelot with the intent to get the jerk to confess that, yes, he was messing with him, yes, he enjoyed making Arthur's life miserable, and no, there was no way in the world he could be _nice_ to him and then continue on with his life. Instead, they had ended up kissing. …What?

"I…I need to think…" Arthur mumbled to himself before backing up and all but running away.

And so after _that_, Arthur wasn't sure whether his life got any better or worse. It was weird to even think that Lancelot, the Lord of the Jerks, remotely had feelings of any sort other than contempt and hatred towards him, and now that he had some physical proof? It just became even weirder. Other than that, Arthur's life continued on the same, miserable track that it had been for the previous several months and no one was the wiser about the incident in the stable.

So, halfway through his last year at Worcestershire Academy, Arthur found himself in a situation that didn't make himself, surprisingly, loathe his life any more than previously, didn't make him like his life any more than previously, and only served to make him slightly more confused and curious.

* * *

Arthur couldn't help but note that the sky was a clear, sunny, blue that day, as he lay on the grass of the practice field. Oh sure, his back ached, his head hurt, his chest would probably have a sizable bruise of a pleasant shade of purple the next day, and his wrist was probably sprained from just now when he had foolishly tried to cushion his fall, but the clear, sunny, blue sky made all that move to the backburner for a short while.

"Hey, Artie, is your wrist okay?"

He sighed and closed his eyes, turning the world from blue to black. When some time passed and he figured that the rest of the team had left, because they could really care less whether Arthur's wrist was okay or not, Arthur replied, "I think I sprained it," because he knew, for whatever reason (Arthur still refused to believe that it was because he had, ugh, _feelings_ for him), Lancelot would still be standing next to him, looking down at him with what was almost concern.

"I'll clean up for you. You go find some ice. Don't you dare say anything about this to anyone."

Arthur almost laughed. "Why would I want to tell anyone? It's not like they would believe me."

"Go find ice, Worm," Lancelot merely responded, and left to clean up.

Arthur laid there for a few more minutes, still wondering why Lancelot was being so generous. Maybe today had just been a good day for him or something. But, no, before, that would have meant only more ridiculing at his expense, and so he would have been forced to clean up by himself.

Arthur eventually went and found some ice to put on his wrist, and after that he left to the stable to pay Excalibur a visit. Letting himself into the stallion's stall, he quietly murmured, "Sorry, I don't have a treat today, but I have to talk to you for a bit."

Excalibur looked a little miffed, but gently nuzzled Arthur's wrist in concern anyways, almost as if he was apologizing.

"Eh, that's not your fault." Arthur hummed in thought before he started talking. "Lance has been acting weirdly these past several months. And although I know it's most likely because he has…_feelings_ for me," Arthur almost visibly shuddered, the idea being that strange to say aloud, "I just can't believe that he does. It must be part of some greater, evil plot or something, because I have no reason to believe that he was telling me the truth. Although…I think he would cut the line off at physically showing interest, because that's just gross…" He trailed off at the end, lost in thought. That was just it. The idea of showing and/or receiving any physical form of affection towards/from Lancelot, the Lord of the Jerks, should have been repulsive – gross at the absolute least…And, yet, when he thought back to the kiss, he felt nothing but pleasurable emotions, and maybe that's what he felt was the weirdest thing out of the whole situation. He was entirely infatuated with Guinevere, had been since he had first seen her on his first day at the school, and yet he had no qualms about kissing Lancelot who had been antagonizing him since day one and who, Arthur _knew_, Guinevere liked. Then, maybe what confused him the most was that Lancelot could have the most beautiful girl in the school and chose _him_. Arthur. The loner at the very bottom of the social pyramid.

Arthur shook his head. This didn't make any sense. "Thanks for listening, buddy. I'll bring you a treat next time."

Arthur left Excalibur in his stall and made to leave the stable. That was when he ran into Lancelot.

"Hey, I can't understand why you don't mind cleaning up, Worm. It's so boring…" He noticed Arthur's vacant expression and asked, "What's wrong?"

Shocked by the concern, Arthur blinked a few times before he asked, "You could have anyone you wanted. Why me?"

Lancelot shrugged. "You're different."

"That's stupid, and you know it," Arthur replied in irritation. "You've been picking on me since the beginning. Why the sudden change of heart?"

Lancelot blankly stared at him before saying, "There was no change."

"What?"

And then, Lancelot actually laughed. "I picked on you because I thought you were sort of cute. Okay, I thought you were a loser like everyone else did and I still do, don't get me wrong, but, I really did think you were sort of cute." He rolled his eyes. "Then I realized how stupid that was and what that would do to my awesome reputation if anyone ever found out, so even though I was the one who had managed to convince the others to ring you onto the team, it was under the pretense that I just wanted another chance to make fun of you and, well, make you miserable." He looked at Arthur then looked away. "Then, this year, I realized that, well, it's our last year and so I might as well let you know, because it's not like it'll matter after the year ends, right?"

When he put it that way, it sort of made sense. It was sort of like that pulling pigtails thing in grade school (which made him question Lancelot's level of maturity but he left that to a later time).

"You've…liked me for four years?"

"Well…Yeah."

"Then there has to be something more to it than you thinking that I'm 'sort of cute,'" Arthur quoted with air quotes.

And once again, Lancelot found it within himself to have the capacity to be embarrassed. "I meant what I said the other day."

Arthur rolled his eyes once he located what day Lancelot was referring to. "I'm not sure whether I should take that as a compliment or an offence."

Lancelot smirked for a moment, "A compliment, if you would," before losing it to embarrassment again. "You're the only one I really find interesting. There's something about your…wit and dry humor that I can't stay away from."

Arthur couldn't help but smile a little. "A compliment again, I assume?"

Lancelot nodded. "So what do you say?"

Arthur had decided back when he had realized that Lancelot, deep, deep, (way) deep down, really actually cared for him back at his big confession, but Arthur couldn't pass up on such a good opportunity to tease the brunet a little, because what would their relationship be without regular insults and teasing (in good humor, of course)? So Arthur pretended to be seriously considering his options for quite a while, as if he was having a great trouble forgiving everything that Lancelot had ever done to him. Okay, sure he could have actually been a bit more hesitant with his forgiveness, but how could he after realizing that Lancelot was willing to admit to something as stupid as thinking that Arthur could actually make a much prettier girl than Guinevere?

When Arthur finally spoke, it was to ask, "You do know that I'm not a girl, right?"

Lancelot rolled his eyes. "Is that what you're worried about?"

"Hey, it's a legitimate question."

"If I say yes, does that mean you're willing to be mine, even if it's just for the remainder of the year?"

Arthur wasn't really sure what results getting into a serious, romantic relationship with Lancelot (of all people) would entail, but Arthur found himself not really caring.

He shrugged. "Well, my life can't get much worse, so why not?"

"Why don't you just say that my charm is irresistible and leave it at that?" Lancelot smirked before pulling Arthur into what should've been their first kiss, but circumstances had made it their second – but it couldn't have been any more amazing either way.

Arthur pulled away only to mutter, "Funny, just as you said that you suddenly became even less charming, and that's saying something," before initiating their third kiss.

Arthur was sure his judgment was lacking since he couldn't be sure whether this would make his terribly miserable life better or impossibly worse, but, for now, he was starting to like his life just a little bit more.


End file.
